What the shit is so good about Shadowrun

[Iduno]

The other thread had a lot of discussion, because people care about Shadowrun. It's a trash fire of old rules that are poorly brought up-to-date, half of which are written by people who can't/won't do math (no, I'm not thinking D&D), and at least one of the writers can write prose about half as well as Stephanie Meyer.

But we still want to like it. Why?

For me, the ease of writing stories that comes from an episodic game like this is a big plus. The dice pool system...could easily be worse. The character customization is fun, and allows for a lot of fluff/background or at least theme to be built into the character's skills. Also, having 30 years of story and world-building means there is a decent amount of usable stuff sitting around.

[Trill]

For me there are three reasons:
1) Fantasy is cool, SF is cool, combining both is cool as well
2) Having three realms (Physical, Astral, Matrix) opens up some great ways to spread characters around and keep things interesting
3) The dicepool system is fairly stable, so we don't get stuff like having experts have large chances of failure at simple tasks (looking at you DSA)

[OgreBattle]

Shadowrun was the first time I saw hot girls with mohawks

[DrPraetor]

The two key appeals of Shadowrun are:
[*] It is an ensemble heist game. Ocean's X is a great template for cooperative storytelling, especially by bored teenagers.

[*] It is a bit of a kitchen-sink, in that people can play both noir/gritty street archetypes and D&D characters in the same setting.

Other than that, it comes down to execution, which was highly irregular but innovative.

[Stahlseele]

Shootouts between Gandalf and the Terminator are pretty common.

[Whipstitch]

An important bit of context is that at the dawn of the '90s gamers were living in an age of D&D and a collection of random ass universal systems. GURPs and TORG, for example, both offered the ability to play near-future super soldiers having adventures with elves but in trying to cover everything they often came across as covering nothing. So as absurd as it may look to modern eyes, in a very real way one of Shadowrun's advantage was that it was actually more focused than many of the games that were ostensibly capable of mining the same territory. In Shadowrun you could play a magician but it would be a distinctly Shadowrun magician with a pool of in-universe jargon and theory to riff on at the table. Likewise instead of being expecting you to use their rules to play Star Trek or Escape From New York the Shadowrun corebooks had its own setting front and center and presented it in a manner that was innovative for its day. The branding was sufficient that when you bumped into other Shadowrun fans at cons or on the internet you could talk about Ares or Dunkelzahn and feel on the same page from the get go instead of having to do that bullshit where you ramble for 20 minutes about the name of your homebrew setting and whether orcs are rampaging bad guys or a player race of noble savages.

[Ancient History]

Shadowrun is probably the best cyberpunk game you've ever played. It has the most developed Matrix, and the most developed cyberware, and the best corporate-dominated future dystopia setting. Even if the Matrix has always been really complicated and in parts unworkable, it's still a shitload more interesting than R. Talsorian's version, or the rather clunky GURPS Cyberpunk mechanics.

Shadowrun is also probably the best fantasy game you've ever played, at least until Earthdawn came out. It's really important to emphasize how different the magic system was from D&D style "you cast a spell and have to memorize it again tomorrow" and yet more interesting and versatile than D&D-style psionics. It actually tries to build a multiracial, multicultural world with fantasy tropes in a way that a lot of D&D-esque fantasy RPGs just don't.

And it's a mash-up that doesn't feel like a mash-up. It feels like its own unique thing. Which is rare enough on its own to be worthy of merit.

And the entire concept of Shadowrunners, by itself, is sort of unique and interesting. It gives the characters an immediate reason to gather together and go on adventures. They don't need to be introduced, you don't need to deal with the logistics of why "professional adventurer" needs to be a thing within the setting - because it is already handled. You are criminals, and there is a criminal subculture that works to support you, tropes and conventions that player characters can immediately slot into. It works.

[RobbyPants]

Shadowrun was the first time I saw hot girls with mohawks

Characters or players?

Shootouts between Gandalf and the Terminator are pretty common.

Not gonna lie: I'd watch that movie with no hesitation.

[Stahlseele]

Yes, the world NEEDS a proper Shadowrun Movie . .
Or maybe even series. Animated(no CGI please) should do nicely.

[MGuy]

CGI is big and it's gonna happen. You got cybertech and magic. It'd be criminal not to have some jaw dropping scenes with that and since only a few companies are allowed to have big time animated movies (and I don't think they are into doing really edgy stuff) it'll be live action and CGI. I'd still go and watch it. I think this is the time for this niche hobby to really have a focused piece of mainstream media. I mean comic book hero movies are big now, so surely in my lifetime a bunch of movies and TV shows featuring ttrpg settings will get their time in the lime light... right?

[maglag]

CGI is big and it's gonna happen. You got cybertech and magic. It'd be criminal not to have some jaw dropping scenes with that and since only a few companies are allowed to have big time animated movies (and I don't think they are into doing really edgy stuff) it'll be live action and CGI. I'd still go and watch it. I think this is the time for this niche hobby to really have a focused piece of mainstream media. I mean comic book hero movies are big now, so surely in my lifetime a bunch of movies and TV shows featuring ttrpg settings will get their time in the lime light... right?

Name one world-popular Shadowrun character.

Ttrpgs are a niche hobby, but Shadowrun is a niche slice of said niche hobby. First we would need a proper D&D movie to come out and even then there would be plenty of other ttrpgs more popular than Shadowrun in the waiting line.

[Ghremdal]

You got the movie Bright...its as close to Shadowrun as it gets.

[MGuy]

CGI is big and it's gonna happen. You got cybertech and magic. It'd be criminal not to have some jaw dropping scenes with that and since only a few companies are allowed to have big time animated movies (and I don't think they are into doing really edgy stuff) it'll be live action and CGI. I'd still go and watch it. I think this is the time for this niche hobby to really have a focused piece of mainstream media. I mean comic book hero movies are big now, so surely in my lifetime a bunch of movies and TV shows featuring ttrpg settings will get their time in the lime light... right?

Name one world-popular Shadowrun character.

Ttrpgs are a niche hobby, but Shadowrun is a niche slice of said niche hobby. First we would need a proper D&D movie to come out and even then there would be plenty of other ttrpgs more popular than Shadowrun in the waiting line.

I didn't say Shadowrun was necessarily popular. I was speculating both on the likelihood of it the studios going CGI rather than animated and how possibly in the future the media will find a way to start milking ttrpgs the way they are milking comic books now. I've no idea whether DND, White Wolf, or whatever will be the random thing that sparks it. My sister didn't really know who Black Panther was before it became a big thing in the media. Same for Game of Thrones which she dragged me into (I had no interest in watching the show at first since I'd read the first few books already). I wouldn't dare to try and guess which particular idea catches fire with the masses. I would say that it doesn't matter how popular it is among the community but how well they present it to the general public.

[maglag]

CGI is big and it's gonna happen. You got cybertech and magic. It'd be criminal not to have some jaw dropping scenes with that and since only a few companies are allowed to have big time animated movies (and I don't think they are into doing really edgy stuff) it'll be live action and CGI. I'd still go and watch it. I think this is the time for this niche hobby to really have a focused piece of mainstream media. I mean comic book hero movies are big now, so surely in my lifetime a bunch of movies and TV shows featuring ttrpg settings will get their time in the lime light... right?

Name one world-popular Shadowrun character.

Ttrpgs are a niche hobby, but Shadowrun is a niche slice of said niche hobby. First we would need a proper D&D movie to come out and even then there would be plenty of other ttrpgs more popular than Shadowrun in the waiting line.

I didn't say Shadowrun was necessarily popular. I was speculating both on the likelihood of it the studios going CGI rather than animated and how possibly in the future the media will find a way to start milking ttrpgs the way they are milking comic books now. I've no idea whether DND, White Wolf, or whatever will be the random thing that sparks it. My sister didn't really know who Black Panther was before it became a big thing in the media. Same for Game of Thrones which she dragged me into (I had no interest in watching the show at first since I'd read the first few books already). I wouldn't dare to try and guess which particular idea catches fire with the masses. I would say that it doesn't matter how popular it is among the community but how well they present it to the general public.

Game of Thrones wouldn't have gone anywhere if LoTR had been a success before. From there is much easier to sell "Medieval fantasy WITH TITS" to the producers.

But thing is, the (comic) books already have central named characters, they have long storylines that the series/movie makers can pick up to work as base and chain together in a multi-part narrative the audience can enjoy and keep them coming back for more.

Shadowrun, as far as I know, doesn't. It's pretty much just a static setting and rules and anybody wanting to make a movie/series out of it would pretty much need to come up with their own interesting characters and interesting storyline that can actually fuel a franchise.

The closest time that something like that worked out for a ttrpg was Records of Lodoss War which was based in the author's own campaign. And there's been quite a bit of other strongly D&D inspired animes. And cyberpunk animes.

So if anything I would be placing my bets in somebody making not-Shadowrun anime instead of live-action and CGI. Aka a Shadowrun fan with talent for drawing decides to get shit done.

[Korwin]

Shadowrun, as far as I know, doesn't. It's pretty much just a static setting and rules and anybody wanting to make a movie/series out of it would pretty much need to come up with their own interesting characters and interesting storyline that can actually fuel a franchise.

If you really wanted to take existing Story arc's you could use the immortal elfs and start with Earthdawn going into Shadowrun.

But I think the best case scenario would be take inspiration from shadowrun and start from scratch, no bagage from the last 20 years shadowrun storyline.

[Whipstitch]

It kills me how Maglag is wrong even when he's right. There's no particular reason why there should ever be a Shadowrun movie. As was pointed out Bright is about as close you're going to get and that got a mixed reception despite Will Smith being attached and the Fresh Prince is way more famous than Shadowrun. But, with that said, there isn't actually a lot of RPGs that are in line to get the movie treatment before Shadowrun. The list of things I could plausibly see cutting in line is basically D&D, Vampire, and Call of Cthulthu and even that last one is best understood as me throwing you a bone--the Lovecraft mythos is collectively a bigger fixture in nerd lore than Shadowrun but you don't actually need any Chaosium material to get in on that action. Everything else is a war game, a generic system or a licensed adaptation of a much bigger IP in the first place.

[Korwin]

I could see someone not wanting to make an D&D Video, because of how bad the previous where.
Vampire had Underword.
Cthulhu would get an movie because of the literature, not because of some bad RPG.

That said, I would expect sooner (hope for) an computer game ala CP2070 than an movie.

[Username17]

I could see someone not wanting to make an D&D Video, because of how bad the previous where.
Vampire had Underword.
Cthulhu would get an movie because of the literature, not because of some bad RPG.

That said, I would expect sooner (hope for) an computer game ala CP2070 than an movie.

Underworld, though obviously culturally influenced by White Wolf, is not actually a White Wolf movie any more than Willow is a Dungeons & Dragons movie. HP Lovecraft, of course has had lots of movies based on his books. And that's not even considering movies like Army of Darkness that make cultural references to the Cthulhu mythos (the evil book in that movie is specifically the Necronomicon).

Shadowrun is low fantasy set in a late information age dystopia. Currently we are thoroughly in the Information Age, so "like Shadowrun" is going to gradually describe more and more things. Bright is low fantasy in the present fucking day, but it's already pretty "like Shadowrun" because the "present day" is going to be closer to when Shadowrun was set than to when it was written in just 2 years.

As time goes by, Shadowrun is going to become more similar to our lived experience, but that only means that there's basically less reason to license the actual brand. If you can make Bright and not give the Shadowrun people a fucking dime - and you can - why would any movie production company want to license the literal Shadowrun brand? They can just do like the Lovecraft movies do and make near future low fantasy and not actually pay any licensing fees.

-Username17

[Thaluikhain]

White Wolf tried suing, IIRC, though people were less than impressed.

In any case, how do you make a RPG into a movie? There's generally no story to adapt. There's like a zillion D&D spin-off books, none of them are D&D as such. Also, you could run a Robin Hood themed D&D campaign, so by extension you could almost claim that a Robin Hood movie is (sorta) a D&D movie.

(Also, is it "a RPG" or "an RPG"?)

[deaddmwalking]

A versus An is bases on the sound of the word following, rather than the letter. Since 'R' os pronouced 'are' you say 'an' RPG. A double vowel 'a are' is harder to say. It's also 'an RPG'if it is a rocket propelled grenade.

If you spell each word, it is 'a' role playing game. When role is spoken it starts with a consonant sound.

The word 'hour' follows similar logic.

[Whipstitch]

There's like a zillion D&D spin-off books, none of them are D&D as such.

That's pretty arguable. You wouldn't want to do a big budget Forgotten Realms Drizzt movie but if you did do one it'd be pretty clear you're going straight for D&D fans.

[Thaluikhain]

A versus An is bases on the sound of the word following, rather than the letter. Since 'R' os pronouced 'are' you say 'an' RPG. A double vowel 'a are' is harder to say. It's also 'an RPG'if it is a rocket propelled grenade.

If you spell each word, it is 'a' role playing game. When role is spoken it starts with a consonant sound.

The word 'hour' follows similar logic.

I thought that, but had heard the rules were more complicated than that.

There's like a zillion D&D spin-off books, none of them are D&D as such.

That's pretty arguable. You wouldn't want to do a big budget Forgotten Realms Drizzt movie but if you did do one it'd be pretty clear you're going straight for D&D fans.

True.

[Username17]

I thought that, but had heard the rules were more complicated than that.

Only more complicated in the sense that there are dialect differences in how things are pronounced and when converted from written words there are differences in how things like acronyms are supposed to be interpreted.

So one of the big ones is that depending on what dialect of English you speak, various letter "H" words will or will not have a silent H. So depending on where you went to school, it can be correct to say "a harassment lawsuit" or "an harassment lawsuit." Both are correct, depending on whether you pronounce that H or not. For some people "harassment" starts with a consonant and for some people it starts with a vowel. Because it's based on what kind of sound it starts with, not on what kind of letter is written down. Harassment is a great example, because there are also a bunch of pretentious twats who are trying to emulate British people who drop the H and say "an harassment" even though they personally pronounce the H - and that's wrong.

So anyway, when it comes to "RPG," it depends on whether you intend for people to say "Arr Pee Gee" or "Role Playing Game" when they read it aloud. So "an RPG" is correct if you intend people to pronounce the acronym, and "a RPG" is correct if you intend the reader to expand the acronym.

-Username17